Fuse
by fan-nerd
Summary: It's no surprise that three of the other members of the so-called new wave are getting a little tired of being in the shadow of their dating, rivaled peers. Hikaru/Akira.


A/N: I have reworked this fic three times. This is the closest incarnation to what I actually wanted to do. **WARNING - **semi-explicit male/male sex. Please enjoy!

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_**Fuse**_

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_Track 1._

Waya absolutely cannot _believe_ he's having this conversation.

The girl Fuku has hooked him up with—the root of the problem, really, why had he let the younger pro convince him to date someone he knew, what an idiot he'd been—is interested in nothing but _Shindou, Shindou, Shindou_, and Waya cannot help but feel like he's going to gag, when he finally stops her talking by putting his hand to her shoulder.

"Look," He tries his error best to be polite, but he doesn't feel particularly forgiving, right this very moment. "Shindou, he's a friend of mine, but I'm _not_ Shindou's _stepping stone_. If you got close to me because of that, I'm sorry to say, you'll be disappointed." At least she has the decency to flush and look apologetic. "It's fine," He eventually concedes with a smile. "Let's not talk about it. But you know, if you're interested in that guy, you'd probably get your hopes up for nothing."

She looks confused. He tells himself not to laugh, not to say what's really on his mind. _Be delicate, Waya, delicate._ Shindou's supposedly a bachelor, he's good looking, and he's a _fantastic_ go-player. (Absently, he's surprised that so many people know about it, when just a few years ago it'd been a game on the brink of extinction in Japan, but then the 'new wave' had come, and the headlines had _their_ names printed in nearly every edition, without fail.)

"He's only got eyes for someone else. Ah, but don't tell anyone I told you that," Waya says, and she blushes, stuttering. When they part, and he sees her home for the evening, he feels weary. Really, couldn't he go one week without being compared to Shindou? Or Touya, for that matter? He knows it's a futile hope, but he dreams anyways, as he opens his apartment and is terribly frightened to find an uninvited guest there. "Holy shit." _Speak of the devil._

"Hey man, welcome home," Shindou's there, smiling, relaxed, with a beer can in his hand, like it's his place. "Sorry to intrude and all that." Waya simultaneously hates and loves how well the other pro can hold his liquor.

"Trouble in paradise?" Waya always asks this when he's over—it's practically the only reason he comes over, anyways, unless it has to do with go. Scratch that, his 'trouble in paradise' had to do with go too, so saying that there were more reasons was false. Really, there'd always only been one reason Shindou did anything at all, it seemed, since they'd known each other.

"He's out of town." He. Who does he think he's fooling, anyways? Waya snorts.

"So you come over to my place to fill your lonely nights. I won't take his home duties too, you know." His old friend gags and downs another swig of his drink. Waya can see him from the corner of his eyes.

"I wouldn't sleep with you if you paid me to," That's bordering on offensive, but Waya knows that Shindou is being both blunt and truthful, and somehow, he can't refute that part of his personality. It's annoying and makes him seem rude, but he's known him closely for more than eight years now.

Somehow, his brutish mannerisms of the evening made him think back to other times. There had been a time, once, when he'd thought that their rivalry had stung and stayed around for too long. Once it had been confirmed in several official matches that they were more than equally matched, those tabloids went nuts. _Touya & Shindou. Shindou & Touya._ It felt like when he didn't hear their names, he saw them, and somehow, that was just as annoying. He often asked Isumi and Ochi how they felt about the looming pressure. Their answers were vastly different, but it seemed that the three of them could agree on a couple of things.

The first was that Shindou was a genius—no ifs or buts about it. He'd managed to surpass all of them in little to no time, and really, he was probably above Touya's natural ability, but his rival improved himself by stubbornness and exposure alone.

The second was that their rivalry, although tried and true, was somewhat…suspicious, to say the least.

"They're fucking," Waya comments brashly, slamming money down on the table between the three of them. "Two-thousand says I find out about it in some way that leaves me horribly scarred for life in the next two weeks."

Isumi and Ochi blink, before the older pro guffaws, digs for his wallet, and places a bet he will probably lose. "My money's on Shindou coming straight out and reporting it to the tabloids and paparazzi, so they'll stop asking if he's got an arranged marriage waiting soon."

Ochi looks a little bit discolored as he shakily goes for his money. "…Their go will probably give it away before anything else," He says as he puts the bill down, but continues murmuring, anyways. "It would explain a lot…all that tension, why he never saw anyone else as a rival. Because he's in love with Shindou."

Although he'd just joined them in betting, Isumi and Waya look at Ochi like he's a moron. "All you have to do to get that is sit in the room with _one_ of them and let them talk for ten minutes."

Ochi had, unsurprisingly, won the pot, but Waya's bet had been a very close runner up. In fact, they'd agreed to split the earnings forty-twenty. Mostly because, well, the taller male had been unfortunate enough to see Shindou (by the way _eww_, just, could you have not _waited for ten more minutes_ until you were back at one of your houses to do this) grabbing Touya's hair in one fist and groin in the other palm in the bathroom, the two of them stumbling into some darkly-lit stall in the most infrequently used restroom in the Institute. Still, just before going in together, they'd been heatedly arguing about the horrible move Touya had made in a fit of momentous mental unease. (Ochi concluded that the two of them had fought over something substantial the night before, because Shindou's game hadn't exactly been phenomenal either, and he'd won.)

Coming back to the present, he now had the deceptively buzzed blonde-brunette resting in his apartment, probably itching for a good game to let off some steam, and forget, for a short while, that his boyfriend was in another province. He didn't like being treated like he was only there for Shindou's convenience—honestly, these days, he freely admitted to himself that if he hadn't liked the guy, he probably wouldn't have hung around him or spoken to him at all—but playing him improved his game by leaps and bounds. He couldn't keep up with how far ahead his friend read at all any more, but the thrill was exhilarating.

Halfway through the game, he'd thought to pose a question, unaware that this decision would lead to a discussion distracting them for the rest of the evening. "Say, Shindou," He'd started easily enough, defending his territory in the top right, _17-4_. "Why're so head over heels for Touya, anyways?" Even when the question slips out, he hated himself. He's always hated feeling like he was being compared to one of them, and now he's opened the floodgates to hear about the one pro he absolutely does _not_ want to know about, on a personal level.

"He's really cute," It's sort of superficial, so he knows Shindou's joking around, but he takes another swig and smiles and Waya rolls his eyes, and he continues speaking. "I mean it. And I'm talking beyond just his looks. We were so stupid—like, who uses go as an excuse to get to know someone? We were twelve, though. Chasing, not chasing, proving all these ridiculous points until we shoved that _goban_ out of the way and sealed the deal." Waya didn't exactly feel the most comfortable, listening to all of this, but he'd taken his hand out of the bowl of stones, and paid rapt attention, regardless. "He gets all riled up over the stupidest shit, and one day he was nitpicking at me for changing the color I dyed my bangs _once_, and I realized, that was it. It was never about go. It was never about all the stupid shit we tried to convince ourselves it was about. It was about me and him, and one childhood crush that we clearly couldn't let go of."

Waya laughs. He can't help it. It feels like a pleasant retribution for all the things the blonde-brunette has put him through when he starts pouting and flushes in embarrassment. "No, sorry, sorry. I believe you. I mean, when you kept spouting all this _Touya _this, and _Touya_ that, all the other _insei_ thought you were crazy, myself included. It probably would've been easier to believe if you'd just out and said you'd loved the guy, rather than say he was your rival."

"He's still my rival!" Shindou insisted, and Waya promised he didn't doubt him on that very carefully, knowing it was a touchy subject. "He's just _also_ my boyfriend."

Waya still doesn't get it, not really, but he knows it's the truth, so he merely placates Shindou, and then gets him to agree to put the game on hold. His heart's not in it, anyways. After the blonde-brunette eventually passes out, sprawled out on the floor, Waya moves him to the spare futon, and wonders how Touya puts up with this big mess of a man.

He doesn't wonder for long. Waya felt that he'd only been sleeping five minutes when he was roused by the buzzing of his cell phone. Groggily, he picked up, and hoped against all hope that he wasn't late for a teaching match at the center this morning. Again. "'Llo, Waya here."

"_It's Touya,"_ They have not, and never will understand each other, or be friends, for that matter. Touya's inability to socialize beyond go and Shindou limits his capacity, and when those things aren't in conversation, he's a rather frigid individual. _"Shindou's not home, so I've been looking for him. I thought you might have an idea to his whereabouts."_

_Why don't you just come out and say you think he's over here, you prick,_ Waya thinks sleepily, but only manages to grunt out, "He's here. Come and get him," before clicking the end button. In his dreamy thoughts, he wonders why they're putting on the front, still calling each other by last name, when he knows that he's heard them call each other _Akira _and _Hikaru_ before. Maybe they think this will keep their hardly-kept secret from spreading further.

The ring at his door comes too soon, and he doesn't bother answering, because he's already heard Shindou on the receiving end of a frustrating and loud phone call, moving around the apartment and gathering his sparse belongings. "Hey. I promise I'll be better company next time. Sorry, Waya," He says this to him as he peeks his head in, and the brown-haired man grunts back, his tired way of saying _it's fine_.

He hopes they aren't lip locking on his porch, stirring up rumors among his neighbors in broad daylight. It's probably a hopeless desire, so he decides to go back to sleep.

_.x._

_Track 2._

The young pro can put up all the false pretenses he wants to, but no one has ever claimed Ochi to be a calm player. He's easily roused, always viciously frustrated about something or another, and a sore loser. That being said, _his_ issue with the two of them is aligned with Waya's.

He's just as tired of hearing their names. More than that, he's tired of not being _included_ in their stupid little exclusive club, and mentally, he knows he probably never will be at their level again. He's missed his chance. Balling his fists, he stops himself from rushing to the restroom and tapping his anger out on the stall door.

Of course, just as he's thinking this, he wins his match against a lower _dan_ with a vicious fury, and then crashes headlong into the rival professionals-turned-lovers that he hates and envies with equal passion. "Hello," He nods politely, before the inconsiderate, taller pro slings his arm around his shoulder.

"Ochi!" Shindou's always so _loud_; every definition of the very word is applicable to him. "We were just talking about your game—good job, by the way, you're as predictable as always." The snide comment makes his blood boil, but he doesn't want the taller pro to know exactly how pissed off it makes him.

"Shindou," Touya hisses, sounding impatient. Ochi thinks to himself with a righteous fury, _Yes, I'm not worth the time to speak out to. Sorry that your lover took the time out of __**your**__ extremely busy schedule to mock someone so unworthy_. He hates himself for hating Touya like this, his bitterness acidic in the back of his throat.

"Hey, we're meeting up at your place this Friday, so replay the game for me? I have a game against Watanabe next week. Isumi-san's joining us, he said he could introduce you to a couple people. Relax a little!" _I'm sure if you're saying that the girl is nice, she's a wreck, _Ochi thinks with one temper, and with another, muses, _Shindou, I swear, we're both going to get punched if you don't get off of me._ Luckily, his arm moves, and comes around the other, taller male's, who seems to be growing his hair out for some unknown reason, and loosely tied it in a low ponytail for the day. Ochi finds that he's curious, but decides worrying about that on top of everything else is a waste of time.

When they leave, voices somewhere between chatting and yelling, he wonders how Shindou always gets the infallible Touya to be so angry. He's almost impressed, smiling and readjusting his glasses while the automatic doors slide shut.

There had been a time in his youth, admittedly, when he'd wanted Touya to turn his attention to him so badly, he'd nearly risked his sanity. He couldn't, for the life of him, understand why someone so cold and detached could be so passionate about the rebellious, rude, and lively Shindou. In his opinion, Shindou wasn't worth the time or effort Touya expended in chasing him or waiting for him to chase. Still, it's hard to dismiss genius when you are forced to come face to face with it. The green-eyed, half-blonde Japanese young man is like a vicious animal across the _goban_. Like Waya, he'd come into grudging respect for his fellow professionals, but unlike Waya and Shindou's strange friendship, his few meetings with Touya were awkward to say the least, and pretty much the worst thing to happen to him.

They only made him see that getting Touya's attention once Shindou had proved to be at his level was nigh impossible.

Recently, they'd been forced into dinner together, his grandfather and Touya's mother meeting for some reason, and deciding that reconnecting their sons was a valiant effort. Kousuke protested with a special kind of fire, but his grandfather was stubborn and stern about this, noting that he'd once learned many valuable things from the pro a couple of years older than he was, and he ought to show his thanks properly.

"Hello," They'd greeted each other with stiff nods, and proceeded through dinner with their families with equal unease. It was fairly obvious to both young men that they did not want the other to be here. Eventually, the inevitable happened, pitting the two against each other across that familiar nineteen-by-nineteen board.

Touya crushed Ochi. Ochi tried to murmur his resignation and thanks like he didn't want to bruise the older male's windpipe, with much difficulty. After this, their relatives were still chatting, so they decide to walk the grounds. There's a pond in the back, and a bamboo water pipe, softly and rhythmically tapping a stone as it filled and tipped its' load back into the pond below. They say nothing for an awkwardly long time; sipping at tea and watching the night creep in slowly.

As cold as ever, the long-haired pro speaks. "You played very well this evening." He's so sickeningly formal. Ochi can't stand it.

"You don't have to lie for my sake," He hopes the venom in his voice will prod him into action, but his words clearly hold no influence, unlike _Shindou's_.

"I'm merely expressing my thoughts. There's always room for improvement," Akira murmurs around his clay mug, an individual design painted around its' base. "Is there some cause for concern in my expressed sentiment?"

The younger pro repeats Touya's words mockingly within his own head, but holds his tongue as much as he finds valid. After a moment, he turns his glasses-shielded glare to the other man. "You don't take me very seriously, do you?"

Ochi can see him trying to think up the best response, and is almost relieved when Touya responds truthfully, albeit in a more roundabout fashion than he would've liked. "The frustration you seem to have with me comes across very strongly in your game. Admittedly, I'm never entirely sure, other than incidents long-past, why you're so antagonistic towards me."

_Incidents long-past_, Ochi scoffs to himself, absently flabbergasted. "You know, Touya, there are more pros in the world gunning for you than Shindou."

Touya, much to his satisfaction, seems put off by that, and scowls a bit. "If you think that I don't know that, you are very much mistaken."

"It sure doesn't ever seem that way," Ochi speaks his mind and smirks around the cup of tea. It's a sorely wrought victory he's pulled from Touya this evening, but it does wonders for making himself feel triumphant. "I mean, it's no secret that you're head over heels for the guy, but one day, I'm going to threaten you more than him, and make you recognize my strength."

Viciously, the gray-eyed man retorts. "You haven't won against Shindou in years, and I highly doubt you will any time soon." The truth of his words stings Ochi, but he can sense that Touya is far from done with this rant he's brought upon himself. "Besides which, it is decidedly _none of your business_ what Shindou and I do in our private time, and I would hope that presuming to anger me in my home was not done in order to make our next game sloppy. I'd happily play you again, if it would alleviate your doubts."

Ochi swallows dryly, balling his fists again. _Shindou, you've got one jealous lover_, he ponders while shaking his head dejectedly, losing the battle he'd brought crashing around his head. He notes that amidst his obvious anger, he'd never raised his voice, and hadn't stopped looking like he'd happily cut his peer to pieces.

On the way home, Ochi mutters and mumbles, reconstructing the game in his head, determined to close the four-_moku_ gap from the evening's game looming heavily on his shoulders.

Now, that dinner on Friday made him wonder if Shindou was an idiot. Nobody would address the huge elephant in the room, regarding the top pros of their generation, now that the both of them are titleholders.

Still, for what it's worth, he gets to be cocky and teasing with those who had been his fellow _insei_ what felt like ages ago. With so many people crammed into his house, recreating games and eating food, loud and practically unpleasant, he feels less confined by Touya and Shindou's very presences.

Until the evening is over, that is. For some reason, he's been largely avoidant, but Shindou gets him alone, in the hall juncture between the living room and the bathroom, the taller man wiping his hands dry with his usual arrogant and overly large smile. "You know our game next month?" No one's ever praised Shindou for being tactful or predictable. "I'm going to crush you."

Ochi's mouth twitches, but he's so caught off guard that he can't manage to say anything more than, "You don't know before we play."

"I'm _his_ rival. Why don't you start _acting_ like you know it?" Shindou claps him on the shoulder and goes back to the living room like nothing had happened, ignoring Ochi's pointed glare focused on his back.

As if the universe has decided that he's not a big enough chew-toy already, Shindou's face is plastered in the column weeks later, victorious, and, to no one's surprise, a comment about him given by Touya is just underneath his photograph.

It's polite and full of thinly veiled affection. _"We'll be meeting at the finals for the Ouza match, naturally. I look forward to a good game."_

"_Naturally_," Ochi fumes, balling the newspaper up and promptly attempting to flush it down the toilet.

_.x._

_Track 3._

He doesn't want to talk about it. _No surprise there,_ Akira thinks, pointedly, cradling a can of warm black coffee.

Of course, _it_ was the topic of his love-interest's emotions, the sometimes-enigma, and constant annoyance, Shindou Hikaru. The issue of Sai, they'd discussed off-handedly, in a spectacularly close game played for amusement at the blonde-brunette's new apartment. The current issue was the approaching children's day, to which his rival almost always responded to by shutting down and then perking up, outright _forcing_ him to play. Still, he only knows just the barest minimum about the shadow of a ghost lurking in his game, in his thoughts, in his _everything_. Touya feels oddly jealous of something he has no influence over.

So, as it's May third, and he's getting edgier, Touya tries to broach the topic, and gets quickly refused in his efforts. Still, he can't deny the rising bile in his stomach when he sees his lover crying as they lay together that evening. He soothes him with whispers, and soft touches to his hair, rubbing his back until the sobs die down, and Hikaru clings to him like a desperate child. It only makes him hungrier to know more, but he knows, all the same, that he cannot force the fiercely independent man to say more than he wants.

It's a pleasant surprise, then, as he's sitting on the couch on May fifth, that he is presented with several things, and Hikaru comes in, looking stronger; more resolved.

"This is my lease. I want you to sign it as a co-leaser. Move in with me. I love you." Hikaru's always so damn sudden, and his reading glasses and book of reprints of Shuusaku's _kifu_ almost fall off of his face and out of his hands.

"Okay, sure," Akira manages, somehow, throat dry and heart racing. They are just into their early twenties, and he's felt this was somewhat inevitable, anyways. "I mean, I love you too. Are you sure you're not just riled up because of, well, today?"

"I'm doing this _because_ of what today signifies," His green eyes are on fire today, and Touya feels like a love-stricken idiot all over again. Suddenly, he's that hopeless, passionate twelve-year old, chasing a mystery, and he can hardly contain his swelling excitement. "That's not all, though." There's a huge mess of _kifu_ and papers and records. "Look, this is stupid and embarrassing, but a while after Sai left me, I started writing some stuff down." Flushing and turning up his nose, he gestures for Akira to have a look.

There's lots of his name. _Touya_, it reads, for a few years. Then _Touya Akira_. Then _Akira_. The progression is touching. The _kifu_, he immediately recognizes, belong to the then unrefined Shindou and his ghostly companion, the ever-elusive Sai. "I don't know what to say."

"He would've wanted me to show you…all this," Hikaru chokes every word out like it's hurting him, but relief is flooding his features to finally get this out of the way. "He was always so freaking nosy, butting into my business at every junction he got. And, of course, he was just as obsessed with go as you were." Akira doesn't mention that this passion for the game was what had brought him to where they were today, but decides this isn't the time or place for such a comment. "But I know…I just _know_ he saw something amazing, in you. And I saw it too. I wanted you more than anything, and sometimes I feel like that selfish desire was what made him eventually disappear, and I thought…I thought, once, that maybe getting away from you, from go, from everything that had changed my life would make him come back, when all he wanted was the opposite. He was there, in all of that shit, right where he'd always been, smiling and encouraging me, in my go." He's crying. Scratch that—they're both crying, now. "Thinking back to it now, I hated every second of those three months. _Hated_ it."

"Me too," Akira says, shuffling next to him, speaking through a scratched throat and tear-stained cheeks. He presses his head to his lover's and feels the sobs wrack through his body, the vulnerable man he's been under these secrets all along. "I couldn't imagine…a life where I didn't see you any more, even though, at that time, we saw each other very infrequently."

"Ugh, now's so not the time to speak all polite to me," He manages to joke through the crying and coughing and hiccups. "That fan, you know, he always carried one. He was a thousand years old, after all. It just felt so important. It was like always having a part of him remind me that I picked the right thing. I made the right choice. I picked you, instead of letting a dead man's rightful passing keep me from the game."

"Thank you, Hikaru," Akira murmurs, kissing him softly, eyes closed and back shuddering. It's only chaste for a moment before strong arms come around the small of his back and pull him closer, and the kiss is passionate and desperate.

_.x._

_Track 4._

Although Isumi had once thought his younger friend was exaggerating, these ten minutes were ten of the longest he'd ever had the great misfortune of sitting through, with Shindou.

He hadn't wanted to count, but he's pretty sure the younger pro has said Touya's name fifteen times.

"Shindou, I'm sure Touya'd get pretty angry to hear you talk about him like that," He's not entirely sure why he says something so obvious, but it works to swiftly turn the topic from the blonde-brunette's constant companion; both rival and lover.

"Isumi-san, what's your girlfriend like?" Well, maybe the topic hasn't changed much, and the man flushes red in a hurry. It's no secret that he's been dating another pro about his age, a woman by the name of Touko, or so Shindou thought, anyways. Her name was Hayashi Toshiko, but he hardly expected the blunt young man to remember such a thing. His brain was always full of Touya, besides.

Before he musters up a response, he wonders why and how he's gotten here. As a matter of fact and position, he finds Shindou, and Touya, for that matter, enviable. They're both recognized and powerful geniuses in the craft, and he is no slouch himself. Go-players are contriving, by nature, after all; tacticians and sneaks, the whole lot. He's not sure he'll ever completely understand either of them. "She's very nice, a lot more polite than a certain _jyudan_," Hikaru rolls his eyes, and he continues, smiling. "We met through our mothers. It ended up being a pleasant and healthy match."

"How boring," Hikaru smirks around his drink, probably mentally comparing his own relationship.

Isumi sighs, suddenly feeling sorry for Shindou's parents and Touya, even. "Your mother must be one of the most patient people in the world."

Green eyes light up and dark eyebrows furrow together. "Hey, what's that supposed to mean?! I am a perfectly charming and handsome young man, thank you very much."

_And therein lies the problem_, Isumi thinks, unable to keep himself from smiling, anyways. "Well, I only say that out of familiarity. Even when I met you, you were already a pretty stubborn and headstrong guy. The older you get, the more confident you are, and I'm sure your mother's always had quite the time with you."

"Geez, why don't you just call her up and swap stories, while you're at it?" Shindou huffs. "I can't help being argumentative. People always treat me like an idiot, and I can't help rising to the challenge, prove them wrong." Isumi wonders how many people had the gall to do so in recent years, as they'd surely been horribly misconstrued.

As if talking up a problem, Kondo, one of Shindou's most recent challengers and problematic acquaintances, caught sight of the two pros and came over, too familiar and too friendly. Shindou's gaze grew dark, and he sent his friend a glance, as if to say, _See?_

"Kondo-san," When he's being falsely polite, Isumi thinks Shindou is nearly as scary as he is across the _goban_. "How wonderful it is to see you, and we don't even have a game today!"

Isumi quietly cringes, and refrains from bursting out laughing by covering his mouth with his hand and chewing the remnants of his almost finished lunch.

"Shindou-san," His peer with an old man's face and a young man's gait sounds just as slimy as he looks. "How are you this afternoon?"

Shindou smiles brighter than ever, continues to use _keigo_, but lets his opinion slip into his words easily, infuriating the other pro. "I'd be doing a _lot_ better if you would kindly find another table."

Kondo's eye twitches, trying not to raise his fist or drop his smile. "A shame, I was _so_ hoping we might dine together."

"Not a chance," The half-blonde responds cheerfully, sounding refreshing. Kondo's façade drops long before his does. Isumi can't help chuckling through his nose, just a little.

"I'll remember this, Shindou," Kondo spits with venom, storming off to the ordering line, leaving Hikaru looking pissed and Isumi is still laughing.

"Fame isn't all it's cracked up to be," Isumi realizes, suddenly, that the half-blonde is in one of his somewhat philosophical moods this afternoon, and is unsure whether he should keep in line with his rare seriousness or cut the tension.

He decides on the former, once he can stop his chuckles. "They say that the more you have, the less willing you are to be in the limelight. Of course, as long as you and Touya keep playing go, there's hardly a chance your fame is going to _decrease_."

Shindou groans, loudly. "I'd gladly rip the next person who comes to interview me a new one, if it'd convince the weekly to stop fucking trying." Although Isumi knows he's joking, he can't stop his laugh from being just a little bit frightened, rightfully concerned that the other pro would do just that. "How do you take it, Isumi-san?" These days, as a man on the cusp of a title himself, he's in the papers quite frequently, and agrees with his companions Waya and Ochi that they pepper a little bit too much comparison to fellow young pros Shindou and Touya into their questions. Infrequently, he gets asked about Yashiro as well, but really, those inquiries about the young men and women at the Kansai Institute got directed at the two headliners with more consistency.

"With a grain of salt. They're only trying to do their jobs," He thinks, had he been in their place, he would've huffed and fumed and been outright furious with Shindou for being such a continued little shit, well into his legal adulthood. On the few occasions he was well behaved, it seemed that some fashion magazine wanted to snap a few photos as well. One thing for sure—no one could say the young man was shy.

"Yeah, well, I wish their jobs didn't include cornering me on my way somewhere to play twenty questions. Maybe they'd be easier to get along with if they'd just get me dinner," Shindou grumbles. Just as he's about to open his mouth to say more, his phone beeped. "Ah, gotta go. Match in thirty minutes. I'll catch you later!" Isumi worried about him, as he waved him goodbye. No wonder he was always in a rush on game days, if he always played things this close. They were four stops away from the Institute, and he'd be lucky if he were five minutes early, in this traffic.

Kondo approached him again, looking surly, and Isumi wondered with a sigh if he couldn't catch a break, for just one day. "How do you know Shindou-_jyudan_?"

"We were _insei_ together, _years_ ago," Isumi closes his eyes and calmly sips his drink. "Look, I'm not gonna rip your throat out. I'm not quite as…how to say…_volatile_ as Shindou is."

Kondo looks somewhat bewildered, but takes a seat, regardless. "How'd he get to be friends with a nice guy like you?"

"Shindou's got lots of friends," He comments, something he finds himself saying every once in a while, with a forlorn smile. "It's sort of weird like that. One day, you think he's a snotty pro with a chip on his shoulder, and then he'll smile and find you interesting for some trivial reason, and the next thing you know, he's breezing past you, but still inviting you for lunch meetings."

The other man, slimy and old looking and a more than a little scruffy, seems absolutely floored. "Yeah…I just thought he was a little too pretentious, and he was stupid enough to trip over the _goban_ in an official match, so I teased him a little, and his hackles raised. Then, it all went downhill from there. I mean, I can't help but respect the guy. He's one of the only ones of the new wave to threaten Touya Akira-_Gosei_, really, and earn a title, but we can't seem to stop hating each other."

"I wouldn't worry about his attitude so much. Being nice to him would probably work out in your favor, though, since he tends to only get worse if you agitate him. Not to mention, that other young title holder probably wouldn't be too happy about the two of you being overly chummy."

"Touya-_Gosei_?" Kondo seems confused. Isumi isn't sure if he wants to scream, cry, or laugh. "They're heated rivals, aren't they?"

"Sure," Isumi agrees, if for nothing else than ending the conversation. "Let's go with that." He glances at his watch, and smiles placatingly. "Look, I have a teaching match in about an hour. I realize it's unreasonable to ask, but do try to get along with Shindou. I think you'll find the following games just as ruthless, but far more educational, that way."

Not for the first time, and probably not the last, either, Isumi wonders if he should be helping other upstarts like this, raising cubs to bite the hand that fed them, but he doesn't have time to worry about that, right now. One game at a time. One day at a time.

He'll worry about Shindou and Touya's looming shadows tomorrow, or possibly even the day after.

_.x._

_Track 5._

Talking about Waya, Ochi, and Isumi after a rough tussle in bed was easily the biggest turn-off of the century for the blonde-brunette nursing an open can of beer.

"Ugh," He groans, swallowing the drink with a brief cough, rough fingers stopping their patterns around his partner's unclothed abdomen. "Well, if you didn't want a round three, you could've just said so. Next headline: Touya Akira is a huge mood-killer; rival Shindou Hikaru forces him to wear an ugly sweater with these words stitched on the back of it."

Akira smolders in that way he finds so sexy, usually, but understands there's more rage than lust in the gaze, right this very moment. "I would've tried to approach the subject earlier, but I was, well, as you say," His face is on fire, and Hikaru knows exactly what he wants to say, but snickers, finding a particular enjoyment in watching the other man squirm in embarrassment. "Caught in passion. Lust. Your _yukata_ was loose. It accentuated your collarbone. You've gotten tanner, this year."

"Why can't you just up and say I was pretty fucking sexy when you walked in, and you wanted to jump my bones?" Shindou teases, eliciting more stutters and flushing. "Change your mind about round three?" Round one had been languid and loud; round two had been rough and urgent, which meant that, if they kept to a pattern, of sorts, round three would have been sensual and special and _perfect_, but Touya had deemed to interrupt their romp for a quote-unquote _serious discussion._ "Your long hair's kind of a turn on for me, y'know, in the sharp-chin and hairy-dick of my _anything-but-delicate_ special someone sort of way."

Akira swats his lowering hand from his groin and blushes, but is determined to steer the conversation, for just a few more minutes. He tries to keep Shindou drinking, to distract his attention. "I was just saying…they must be concerned. Being constantly compared, and watching their every move from similar positions is equally nerve-wracking. Being asked about Ochi-kun is sufficient to, as you say, 'drive me crazy'."

"That's because Ochi's a little bitch," Hikaru deems in his usual brusque manner, sighing and settling with his beer again, but his legs are still entwined with Touya's. "It's old news—he wants you to acknowledge him, both of us keep showing him it'll take more than he's giving to earn our attention. You can't let that little creep rile you up."

"Oh, do be quiet—I know the two of you are still closely acquainted, regardless of whether you'll call it friendship or not," Akira murmurs on his tan arm over the loose _yukata_ sleeve. "It seems that people find it more, err, _difficult_ to remain on pleasant terms with me."

"That's because you talk like the world's frozen over, and you're gonna eat your conversation partner for breakfast. Metaphorically speaking," Hikaru shivers a little with those furtive kisses, and presses into his boyfriend's backside further. "Waya's no moron, and he's not exactly what I'd call a far-away combatant. He's just as good as Kurata, albeit three times as slow."

For all of Akira's supposed desire to keep talking about all of this, his first quiet touches and kisses were growing easily more sexual, and it was making it _very_ hard for Hikaru to focus on the topic at hand. "Isumi-san doesn't seem all too pleased with me, either."

"Oh, shut the hell up, Akira," Hikaru stops with these pretenses, and lets those pale hands push down the loose fabric he's wearing all over again, lips already swollen and moist from the bruising kisses they've already exchanged tonight.

Akira takes the entering stance this time, and he's always such a huge tease, so slow, so tender, it makes Hikaru sick and crazy and in love, and he howls his name into the night every time he pushes in deep and rocks back sweetly. "I love you," He murmurs, fingers tangled, blonde hair and dark, long locks tangling together when they kiss again, and Hikaru wouldn't trade this for anything else in the world.

When he wakes in the morning afterglow, he ignores his inherent nakedness, and grabs his cell phone, determined to make a few phone calls.

"Waya," He sounds a lot meaner than he intends, but the very obvious threat in his teasing tone comes across. "Say, I'm calling Isumi and Ochi, too. Seems we need to talk." Waya openly gulps on the other side of the line.

Hikaru thinks thrashing them all by six moku or more, playing as white, will serve to keep their frustrations and feelings of discontent at the surface, if for nothing more than to keep his and Touya's 'rivalry' very, _very_ private, for at least the next year.


End file.
